“Teore took Raha?”
Blizan’s face contorted instantly.
“Yes, Your Highness. We received word that he went directly to the High Temple yesterday morning and escorted him away.”
“What were the knights I assigned doing to let a day pass without reporting this immediately?! And what the hell was the High Priest thinking, permitting this without my—!”
Blizan bolted upright, his voice thundering with rage, before sharply cutting himself off and slamming his mouth shut.
Whatever transpired within the walls of the High Temple was ultimately an internal matter of the Holy See.
Even high-ranking nobles who relied heavily on the High Priest’s power to suppress their mana outbreaks refrained from recklessly interfering with the Temple.
While someone in Blizan’s position could station eyes there or make requests that sounded heavily like commands, they could not use raw military force to bend a refusing High Priest to their will.
The same restriction applied to the other four attribute-wielding nobles, which made the fact that Teore had simply marched in and taken Raha to the Grand Ducal Castle entirely baffling.
“Surely, he didn’t use force!”
No matter how he looked at it, Raha—who was fanatically infatuated with him—had absolutely no reason to willingly follow a man like Teore, who had literally tried to strangle him to death.
There was only one logical conclusion.
“Did he dare threaten the High Priest and forcibly confine him within his castle?!”
Confinement was something Blizan himself could have executed if he wished.
While meddling with the High Temple itself was legally forbidden, whatever happened to the High Priest outside of those walls was technically a personal matter.
Then again, the High Priest’s personal affairs were inherently tied to the Temple, making the legal boundaries entirely gray—but imperial law was notoriously lacking in precision.
And Teore possessed a natural, borderline genius talent for exploiting exactly those kinds of legal loopholes.
‘Even so, I am the Crown Prince, and I gave an explicit order.’
Blizan had already dispatched an official decree instructing everyone to receive treatment from the new High Priest, effectively declaring Raha as his future possession.
For Teore to disregard that and take Raha by force was an insult to both the Crown Prince and the Holy See.
In reality, because the attribute-wielding nobles had grown up together from childhood, the boundaries of hierarchy were often blurred, meaning minor slip-ups regarding royal commands were usually overlooked unless they caused a major catastrophe.
Blizan knew his father, the Emperor, would likely tell him to let the matter drop.
But when it came to the High Priest, the narrative shifted entirely.
He was the precious, invaluable Son of God who suppressed the violent mana outbreaks of the five attribute-wielders guarding the Empire from magical beasts.
Forcing such a figure into confinement was a crime even the Emperor could not easily overlook.
‘Right. It would be a different story if Raha had gone with him willingly…’
But given Raha’s obsessive devotion to him, there was no way he would have stepped foot into the Grand Duke’s domain by choice.
With that thought, Blizan decided to use this opportunity to make an example out of Teore.
It was time to ensure the other four attribute-wielders stopped taking the words of their future Emperor so lightly.
They were lifelong friends who shared an unbreakable bond, but at the end of the day, Blizan was the one who would rule the Empire.
A baseline level of obedience was required going forward.
“What are your orders, Your Highness? Shall we contact him immediately and command him to return the High Priest to the Temple?” his aide inquired.
Blizan shook his head slowly, a cold smirk playing on his lips.
“No. I will go there myself.”
“Personally, sir?”
Before the startled aide could even stand, Blizan had already reached the office door.
Flinging it open, he commanded the guarding knights to prepare the teleportation stone directly linked to the Grand Ducal Castle.
He turned back to his wide-eyed aide, his freezing gaze curving into the shape of a sharp crescent moon.
“Sometimes, people need a reminder of who the actual master is.”
Even royalty could not trespass into the estates of the five attribute-wielding families without prior permission—unless it was an absolute emergency.
By utilizing the emergency teleportation stone without so much as a warning message, Blizan was initiating an open, deliberate provocation against Teore.
‘What on earth is he planning…?’ the aide worried silently.
Though they had grown up like brothers, the other three nobles maintained a respectful, deliberate distance from Blizan out of courtesy for his future position as their sovereign.
But Teore was different. He had been an unyielding, obstinate force who rarely listened even to the Emperor himself since childhood.
The only reason the Emperor tolerated—or rather, could not punish—Teore’s insubordination was because he was the head of the most powerful estate in the Empire, wielding the rare dark attribute that inherently commanded dominion over the other four elements.
For generations, the dark-attribute masters of the Grand Duchy were the only nobles capable of standing on equal footing with imperial authority.
To weaken their influence, past Emperors had desperately spread malicious rumors, claiming the dark attribute was an unholy power obtained by selling one’s soul to demons.
Yet, whenever a massive horde of magical beasts threatened the borders, it was always the dark-attribute Grand Duke who stepped onto the battlefield with overwhelming force to save the citizens.
While the fire, wind, water, and earth wielders did their part, it was always the Grand Ducal house that annihilated the threat in an instant, minimizing casualties.
Thus, no matter how much people slandered the dark attribute, the Northern Grand Duchy remained entirely untouchable.
‘It’s all because the Gods mistakenly granted the strongest attribute to the Scaredet family instead of the Imperial line,’ Blizan thought bitterly.
The imperial fire attribute was exceptionally potent, but it lacked the sheer, absolute dominance of darkness.
The Imperial Family had long viewed the Scaredet line as a permanent thorn in their side.
Though they appeared incredibly close on the surface, their lifelong brotherhood was subtly, permanently warped.
‘So, now that Teore has made a foolish, critical blunder, it’s the perfect time to break his habit of defying my orders.’
As Blizan stepped into the teleportation circle, he eagerly anticipated the sight of Raha—who had surely been dragged away and locked up against his will—crying tears of joy and throwing himself into his arms the moment he arrived.
Completely oblivious, of course, to what the two were currently doing, entangled on the sofa in the parlor connected to Teore’s bedchamber.
“Ah, hngh, haah…”
Raha stared down at the thick black hair of Teore, who was currently hovering over him on the sofa, methodically tracing his tongue across Raha’s nipple.
He had absolutely no idea what specific trigger had suddenly caused the Duke’s member to snap rigidly awake again, but the sheer intensity of Teore’s arousal was undeniable, which brought a strange sense of relief.
After all, the contract they had just struck was incredibly lucrative for him.
“If Your Grace wishes for me to be your exclusive healer, you must pay an appropriate price.”
“A price? Tell me what you desire.”
